CentOS - Oct 2013 - "Enterprise Class Hard Drive" - Scam Warning

Hi All,

I know many of us here manage RAID on our Centos based servers so this may 
be of interest to us all.

I ordered three new "Enterprise hard drives" this month from a well
known
UK online retailer. The drives arrived as new in their anti-static 
packaging. Before using one of the drives in a mission critical hardware 
raid I checked the SMART attributes and was amazed at what I saw; see a 
few of the attributes listed below

   1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  -   2600
   9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   098   097   000    Old_age   -   2106
  12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   -     80
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   196   196   000    Old_age   -    398
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   180   180   000    Old_age   -   4077


So for a brand new packaged drive this was a bit of a surprise. "2106"
power on hours, obviously should be zero for a new drive and "398" 
"Offline_Uncorrectable sectors" this is a well used and faulty drive.
I
contacted the (very well known) manufacturer of the drive and asked for 
information on the serial number. I was told the serial number of the 
drive was region specific to the USA and should not even be in the UK. I 
opened and tested the second and third drives with similar results. I was 
told two of the drives had already been returned under warranty and 
replaced with new drives. Wow... I was also told by the online retailer 
this is known as a grey import and is not that uncommon..

So it may be a good policy to check the SMART attributes of drives before 
deployment!

Cheers, Steve

On Wed, Oct 02, 2013 at 05:24:54PM +0100, Steve Brooks wrote:
>    9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   098   097   000    Old_age   -   2106
>   12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   -     80
> replaced with new drives. Wow... I was also told by the online retailer 
> this is known as a grey import and is not that uncommon..
Grey imports would not have been running for 87 days and power cycled 80
times in that period.

If the retailer doesn't refund your money then you need to escalate.

And name the retailer...

-- 

rgds
Stephen

In fact it is prudent to completely test each drive before use.  I
recommend scripting several rounds of dd, badblocks, all smart tests,
and some hdparm interaction.

On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 11:24 AM, Steve Brooks <steveb at mcs.st-and.ac.uk>
wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> I know many of us here manage RAID on our Centos based servers so this may
> be of interest to us all.
>
> I ordered three new "Enterprise hard drives" this month from a
well known
> UK online retailer. The drives arrived as new in their anti-static
> packaging. Before using one of the drives in a mission critical hardware
> raid I checked the SMART attributes and was amazed at what I saw; see a
> few of the attributes listed below
>
>    1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  -   2600
>    9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   098   097   000    Old_age   -   2106
>   12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   -     80
> 198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   196   196   000    Old_age   -    398
> 200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   180   180   000    Old_age   -   4077
>
>
> So for a brand new packaged drive this was a bit of a surprise.
"2106"
> power on hours, obviously should be zero for a new drive and
"398"
> "Offline_Uncorrectable sectors" this is a well used and faulty
drive. I
> contacted the (very well known) manufacturer of the drive and asked for
> information on the serial number. I was told the serial number of the
> drive was region specific to the USA and should not even be in the UK. I
> opened and tested the second and third drives with similar results. I was
> told two of the drives had already been returned under warranty and
> replaced with new drives. Wow... I was also told by the online retailer
> this is known as a grey import and is not that uncommon..
>
> So it may be a good policy to check the SMART attributes of drives before
> deployment!
>
> Cheers, Steve
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos


-- 
Billy Crook ? Network and Security Administrator ? RiskAnalytics, LLC

From: Steve Brooks <steveb at mcs.st-and.ac.uk>
> I ordered three new "Enterprise hard drives" this month from a
well
> known 
> UK online retailer. The drives arrived as new in their anti-static 
> packaging. Before using one of the drives in a mission critical hardware 
> raid I checked the SMART attributes and was amazed at what I saw; see a 
> few of the attributes listed below
There's also the grey area of the "like new", refurbished (by the
manufacturer,
or even the vendor), etc... especially on ebay.

When I did some server support for a big name, I learned that all the (very
expensive)
repair parts they sold to clients whose equipment was out of warranty were 
all refurbished parts (from other clients).

JD

Hey,

I was wondering about enterprise class drives:
Do you really expect the drive to be shipped to you before even a basic
validation test?
Do you understand that a basic spindown to the car is needed to make
sure that all the parts are fine and the car actually works??
I would try to imagine myself this:
Hmm OK this is your new car "bam: Hoo we forgot to start the engine and
make sure that you have a bit of gas to make it to the next gas station"
hoo and "sorry this is the first time we turn the switch on since the
assembly of the car so feel free to test it for us.."

Eliezer

On 10/02/2013 07:24 PM, Steve Brooks wrote:
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I know many of us here manage RAID on our Centos based servers so this may 
> be of interest to us all.
> 
> I ordered three new "Enterprise hard drives" this month from a
well known
> UK online retailer. The drives arrived as new in their anti-static 
> packaging. Before using one of the drives in a mission critical hardware 
> raid I checked the SMART attributes and was amazed at what I saw; see a 
> few of the attributes listed below
> 
>    1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  -   2600
>    9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   098   097   000    Old_age   -   2106
>   12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   -     80
> 198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   196   196   000    Old_age   -    398
> 200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   180   180   000    Old_age   -   4077
> 
> 
> So for a brand new packaged drive this was a bit of a surprise.
"2106"
> power on hours, obviously should be zero for a new drive and
"398"
> "Offline_Uncorrectable sectors" this is a well used and faulty
drive. I
> contacted the (very well known) manufacturer of the drive and asked for 
> information on the serial number. I was told the serial number of the 
> drive was region specific to the USA and should not even be in the UK. I 
> opened and tested the second and third drives with similar results. I was 
> told two of the drives had already been returned under warranty and 
> replaced with new drives. Wow... I was also told by the online retailer 
> this is known as a grey import and is not that uncommon..
> 
> So it may be a good policy to check the SMART attributes of drives before 
> deployment!
> 
> Cheers, Steve
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>